World Cup wake-up call
Canada suffers 4-1 loss to Germany in opener
By TERRY JONES -- Edmonton Sun
COLUMBUS, Ohio -- Canada's first World Cup win in history, men's or women's, will have to wait till Wednesday. What this was, for so many of them, was their first real loss wearing Canada's colours on the international stage.
You forget. For the most part, they're kids. For Christine Sinclair and a significant percentage of the players on Even Pellerud's Women's World Cup team - spanked 4-1 by Germany here last night - they've never lost before. Not in regulation time. Certainly not like this.
They did here last night. It wasn't in the realm of the 7-0 and 7-1 humiliations to the top-seed teams in Canada's previous two World Cup appearances. But it hardly sent the message to the world that Canada has arrived as one of the very best teams in the world, which was what they believed they'd do as USA 2003 opened yesterday.
This looked a whole lot like separating the girls from the women.
The Canadian girls, the ones who wrote such a spectacular story at the FIFA U-19 Women's World Championships in Edmonton last year, were 5-0 before losing the gold-medal game to the Americans on a golden goal.
The grads proceeded to the CONCACAF World Cup qualifying last fall and went undefeated through the event, known as the Gold Cup, until losing to the U.S. again, and again on a golden goal. One by Mia Hamm at that.
Maybe they thought they were world-beaters. Whatever - for them, this was a first.
"It's tough,'' said Sinclair. "It's really tough. For most of us on this team it was our first World Cup game. You don't want to lose. You don't want to lose like that.''
Now they can't lose again.
Now Canada must defeat both Argentina and Japan to get through to the quarter-finals.
Canada, without much of a soccer history, briefly began dreaming in Technicolour when Sinclair took exactly three minutes to score her first World Cup goal.
"Did I expect to score my first World Cup goal in three minutes? Definitely not,'' she said. "That was the best start that could have happened for us. Unfortunately, after that, we didn't play as well as we could. That's fine against a lot of teams but against probably the best team in the world, you're going to get punished and we did.''
LED FOR 35 MINUTES
They gave it a pretty good go, leading the Germans for 35 minutes. Then a yellow-card call in the penalty box on Charmaine Hooper gave the Frauen-Nationalmannschaft the break to begin to break the young Canadian backs.
Reacting to Sinclair's go-ahead goal on a header off a free kick by Kristina Kiss, the No. 3-ranked Germans accepted the challenge and created chance after chance after chance until Bettina Wiegmann scored on the penalty kick in the 39th minute.
"Our confidence went down after they scored their first goal. We became hesitant,'' said Sinclair.
Superstar Birgit Prinz had a glorious chance in alone foiled from behind by Sharolta Nonen and miss-kicked on another outstanding opportunity. Sinclair sailed one high and wide for Canada at the other end, but most of the play was coming the other way.
Canadian keeper Karina LeBlanc made the save of the day, diving to deflect a perfectly placed drive from Ariane Hingst. But Hooper was yellow-carded on the play and Bettina Wiegmann put it in the back of the net with LeBlanc frozen on the penalty kick.
"I thought the call could go either way,'' said Hooper of the ball which hit her hand.
Either way, the Canadians were happy to make it to the dressing room considering the extent of the blitzkrieg they more or less had managed to escape.
Then Pellerud out-coached himself.
He pulled Kara Lang out of the lineup and put in Rhian Wilkinson at the half.
"We were playing hesitant and they were moving the ball quicker than we were used to. I went from the 4-3-3 to a 4-5-1,'' he said of the move.
In the first minute of the second half, not a full 60 seconds after he made the switch, Stefanie Gottschlich headed one home for a 2-1 lead and Pellerud was left to chase the game with the wrong lineup.
"Their goals weren't timely for us,'' admitted the coach who won the 1995 World Cup with Norway. "We were too inexperienced to deal with that.''
Germany owned the ball most of the night, as the 11-3 shots on goal, 10-5 corner kicks and 58% time of possession would suggest.
Prinz put it away in the 75th minute with a header and Kerstin Garefrekes made it 4-1 in referee's time, leaving Canada to contemplate if it accomplished a damn thing this day.
"We weren't up to par,'' Pellerud said.
"I'm disappointed. I had more expectations for my team. I was surprised our confidence went down as much as it did when it did.''
ONWARD AND UPWARD
But it's onward and upward.
"It's not the same as losing those games at the World Cup in the past,'' said Hooper.
"We gave them a fight most of the night. We battled with them. I'd like to play this game again.''
Maybe in Portland or Carson City. But first they have to beat Argentina and Japan.
